Canticle poi-2

by Ken Scholes

  “When we arrive,” she had said, “our work begins.”

  “Yes,” Vlad Li Tam said to darkness that surrounded him.

  “Yes,” he thought he heard it whisper back.

  Chapter 9

  Rudolfo

  The snow had become cold rain when Rudolfo and his scouts rode into Caldus Bay. The village had grown in the years since Rudolfo had last visited, but it was still small. The high docks lay nearly empty with winter, and the low docks held their scattering of local fishing boats. A sprawl of larger two-story wooden buildings marked the center of town, and smaller houses encircled them and stretched out from them along the edges of the shore and north to melt into the forest.

  In the late-evening gloom, the wet air carried their breath and filled their lungs and mouth with the heavy taste of burning alder. Rudolfo whistled his men down from their horses, and the Gypsy King and his squad walked past lamp-lit windows and barking dogs, their boot-heels loud upon the cobblestones to announce their arrival.

  When a tired-looking woman opened a door to peer out Rudolfo called to her. “Good woman,” he said, tipping his cap beneath the hood of his raincloak. “Could you direct us towards your local inn?”

  She pointed. “Yonder and left at the council hall.”

  Rudolfo smiled and nodded. “Thank you.”

  By the time they reached the inn, two boys-dripping wet and muddy from running in the rain-were there to tend the horses. He handed over the reins and watched his men do the same. Then, he put his gloved hand upon the door latch and pulled open the door. The muted conversation within ceased as bleary eyes looked up from wooden tankards.

  Lanterns lit a rough, wood-paneled room that smelled of fresh-baked bread and oyster stew. Small groups of men and women sat at the counter or at pine tables placed throughout over worn plank floors. They studied Rudolfo in the doorway and he moved in, mindful of their stares. His men followed him, and he let Jaryk guide them toward an empty table large enough to accommodate the group. Rudolfo approached the bar, his eyes calculating the evening clientele.

  He drew a purse from beneath his cloak. Normally, he preferred letters of credit, but in the smaller towns, coins were still very much the custom of the day. He smiled at the large man wiping glasses behind the counter. “Good evening,” he said. He pulled down his hood, feeling the cold water trickle down his back, beneath his cloak and woolen shirt. “I’m looking for food and lodging for me and my men. A common room will suffice if you have one.”

  The innkeeper nodded, and his smile widened as Rudolfo tipped a handful of coins onto the granite bar. “I’m certain we can accommodate you,” he said with an accent that hinted of an earlier life on the Delta. “We’ve a peppered oyster stew and fresh sour bread. Cold beer, too. And there’s a bunkroom in the back that will sleep your dozen with ease.”

  Rudolfo inclined his head. “We are also looking for someone.” He watched as the man’s eyes narrowed slightly, watched the smile slip just a fraction on his mouth. “An old man. A fisherman named Petros.”

  Rudolfo studied the innkeeper, registering the shifting of his eyes and the way the tip of his tongue poked out to wet his lips. He looked away, and Rudolfo smiled at it. Then, he looked back, something harder in his eyes. “You’ll not find anyone of that name here in Caldus Bay.”

  Rudolfo raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps he goes under a different name?” Then, his hands moved in the subverbal language of the Entrolusian Delta. I seek the former Pope Petronus, and my need of him is urgent.

  The innkeeper scowled, and his voice became a low growl. “If you’re about lodging, food and drink, I can help you. If you’re about finding ghosts, I cannot.”

  Rudolfo’s voice lowered to match the innkeeper’s. “I assure you,” he said, “that I bear him no ill will.”

  The innkeeper put down the glass and leaned forward. “And I assure you,” he said, “that he is not here.”

  Rudolfo offered a tight-lipped smile and pushed the small pile of coins toward him. “Thank you, sir. Food and lodging it is.”

  They sat at their table in the corner and talked quietly as the innkeeper’s daughter-a full-sized girl in calico-served them wooden bowls of stew and silver platters of bread. The strong flavor of the oysters put Rudolfo off, but he found it bearable with the bread and the beer to balance the taste.

  When they finished, the innkeeper’s portly wife showed them to the back room-a narrow stretch lined with bunk beds, the floor covered with mismatched rugs. There were woolen blankets and patchwork quilts on each and a narrow door that Rudolfo assumed led to an outdoor toilet.

  “We lock the inside door when we close. You come and go, you come and go through there.” She pointed to the door set in the back wall. Her voice was cold and firm.

  We’re only welcome here for our coin, Rudolfo thought. But he’d seen the weather change on their faces. Until he’d mentioned Petronus, the people here were warm and inviting. But now.

  After days in the saddle and on the cold ground, the small bunk would be a welcome change. Rudolfo watched as his men quietly set about checking the room.

  He looked to Jaryk. “Set your guard,” he said quietly, “but don’t guard too well. If he’s here, he’ll know we’re looking for him soon enough-if he doesn’t know already.” Rudolfo thought of the wet-clothed boys and imagined them running the rain-slicked streets to bear the innkeeper’s message of Gypsies at the door. Would the old fox come himself?

  Their last parting had been strained. Rudolfo, in his rage, had nearly run the codger through for killing Sethbert and for ending two thousand years of Papal Succession by blooding his hands. Later, when he learned that Petronus had deeded the Order’s accounts and holdings to his trust, he’d also found a quickly scribbled note: What I’ve done will serve the light-and you-better than any Pope. P.

  Now, months later, he could see Petronus’s reasoning, though it still chewed at him. The world had changed, and the Androfrancines had played a part in that by unearthing Xhum Y’Zir’s spell. And the world continued to change.

  More importantly, his world had changed.

  I am a father. Pulling off his boots, he stretched out in the narrow bed and folded his arms behind his head. Closing his eyes, he called up the image of his infant son, gray and wheezing in the arms of his flame-haired wife. And here, he sought the whereabouts of Jin’s father, fled the Named Lands now these seven months. Perhaps Petronus could point him toward his quarry. But if he could not, Rudolfo knew that someone could. A dozen iron-clad vessels, tall as temples on the sea, were not easily hidden. He would find Vlad Li Tam and his daughter, Rae Li Tam. He would elicit a cure from them and return to see his boy hale and hearty. He would sing him the “Hymnal of the Wandering Army” as his own father had done, rocking him in his cradle.

  Soon, the sounds of his snoring men gentled Rudolfo off to sleep, and he let that restless noise carry him. When the hand came from nowhere to cover his mouth, he started.

  Another hand pressed words into the soft flesh of his forearm. You are a long way from your forest, Gypsy Scout. He opened one eye and tried to let it stay unfocused on the dim-lit room. The faintest outline of a hunched figure crouched by him. The fingers pressed again, tapping their words. Why do you seek Pope Petronus?

  “There is no need for stealth or silence,” Rudolfo said. “My men know you’re here.”

  The room, dim-lit by the light of a full, blue-green moon, lay still. Then, a low whistle rose behind the crouched figure as the First Lieutenant called the men to Second Alarm. They slid from their bunks, and two of them took up positions at the room’s only exits, hands upon their knives and pouches.

  “Why do you seek Pope Petronus?” the voice asked again.

  Rudolfo smiled. Pope Petronus. The use of the title betrayed this midnight visitor. “I would speak to him personally of this matter. Since when did the Gray Guard go magicked and ghosting? We are not at war.”

  The voice was hoarse but impassioned. “Perhap
s not with each other, Gypsy, but we are indeed at war. We have been at war since Windwir fell. The events of the past week should make that clear enough.” The magicked Gray Guard coughed, and Rudolfo heard wet rattling deep in his chest.

  He sat up. “How long have you been under the magicks?”

  Four Gypsy Scouts surrounded the voice now. “It’s unimportant.”

  “It clouds your judgment and your lungs. Are you fevered?” No answer. Rudolfo narrowed his eyes, squinting at where the man must have stood. “You need rest. You need time out from under the powders.”

  “I need,” the voice said in nearly a growl, “to know why you’ve left your forest and your library to seek Pope Petronus.”

  Rudolfo rose from the bed. “You protect him. I respect that.” He stood. “My men protect me. Tell Petronus that Rudolfo, Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses and General of the Wandering Army seeks audience with him. Beyond that, you’ll have no further explanation of me. It is a private matter for Petronus and me alone.” He whistled and his men fell back; then he leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You will be mad and infirm soon enough if you do not leave off the powders and give your body time to rest.”

  “Then I will be mad and infirm. There is no rest in these dark times.” The Gray Guard coughed again. “Are you truly Lord Rudolfo?”

  Rudolfo held up the hand that bore his father’s signet. “I am.” Then, he waited. He is uncertain of what to tell me.

  “Father Petronus was attacked on the night of your Firstborn Feast, along with the others. He is no longer in Caldus Bay.”

  “Where has he gone?”

  At first, the Gray Guard said nothing. When he finally found his voice, it was faint. “He is safe. I will send word that you seek him and let him and Grymlis decide how best to deal with your interest. It will take time.”

  Rudolfo nodded. “That is fair, but time is short.” He nodded to Jaryk, who whistled the men to stand down. “Be quick,” he said.

  Then he listened as the magick-muffled boots whispered their way across the floor to the narrow door leading out into a night that had become clearer and colder since their arrival in Caldus Bay. He waved his lieutenant over and spoke to him in Gypsy hand-sign. How long did he wait beneath my bed before revealing himself?

  Two hours, Jaryk replied.

  Rudolfo nodded, stroking his beard thoughtfully. Gray Guards were not scouts. They eschewed the magicks as far as Rudolfo knew, preferring instead science and strength to spells and strategy. It would not be hard to follow him, even without the powders. Send two scouts after, he signed. They are to see, not be seen.

  The Gypsy Scout nodded. “Yes, Lord. Shall they go magicked?”

  He shook his head. “They should not need them.” But before this is over, they will, he thought. He sensed it.

  Rudolfo went back to the bed and stretched out in it. From the corner of his eye, he watched two of his best and brightest slip into the night, moving like ghosts even unmagicked.

  After they’d gone, he stared at the bottom of the bunk above him, pondering what he had learned. Petronus was attacked, too. He wondered how it was that the old fox had survived. If it was indeed part of the same blood-magicked and iron-bladed storm he had witnessed, that was no small feat. He could not imagine a small band of Gray Guard, unfamiliar and inexperienced with the magicks they now used, standing against a half-squad of the fierce Marshers that had killed Hanric and Ansylus.

  The violence of that night returned to him and he shivered. That scene, he realized, had played out across the Named Lands. And at his core, he knew that they had been timed with the perfect coordination of forces converging all at once upon their chosen targets.

  No, not him, the voice had said. He’d been intentionally spared, and even that knowledge had not been withheld from him-or from those within earshot-by the attackers. Once more Rudolfo wondered why, and as he turned the wheels of the Rufello lock over and over in his mind, he came no closer to an answer. Instead, more questions emerged from each twist and click of the mechanism.

  When sleep finally reclaimed him, those questions infused his dreams with a sense of foreboding that he could not evade.

  For the rest of that night, Rudolfo pitched and tossed upon his bed and dreamed he fled a great and bloody rising sun.

  Winters

  Winters watched the old men shuffling into the cavern throne-room, their faces pale from what they’d just seen. Nearby, the meditation statue of P’Andro Whym held his mirrors and dared them all look inside themselves. Winters was afraid of what they would find when they did. There was disease within their House, and these men had now seen its proof.

  Not even an hour had passed since her arrival, and Winters sat beside the empty Wicker Throne. And she could delay no further. She tapped the handle of the Firstfall axe upon the hard stone floor of the Dreaming Cave, and the old men took their seats.

  After days in the saddle riding across the frozen northern marshes it was good to be home, though the night’s business ahead filled her with apprehension.

  The furnaces spat and hissed throughout the great stone hall, and the hot, moist air tasted earthy in her mouth. Before her, the hall narrowed to a corridor leading out into the village and the night. Behind her, the tunnels spiraled down into deeper chambers that held the Book of Dreaming Kings.

  As the old men sat, they looked up to her, their faces lined with care and sadness. Once she made eye contact with each, she convened the Council of Twelve with the words of Shadrus, the first Marsh King. “Home calls to us as we sojourn in this land of many sorrows,” she said as she looked around the cave at the old men who formed the council.

  The Twelve replied in unison. “May the Dreaming Kings call forth the Homeseeker that we may find our way.”

  She nodded slowly and looked from man to man. “May the Homeseeker guide us true into our Misplaced and Deeded Land.”

  “Come soon, Homeseeker, and find our Home,” they said in one voice. They were the oldest and most venerable of her people, chosen by their clans for unmatched wisdom and understanding. Most, in their day, were warriors who had raided in the Named Lands as headmen, leading bands of mud-and ash-painted skirmishers to keep their neighbors fearful and supplement their scarce resources.

  No one traded with Marshfolk unless compelled to do so. Until her father first saw the fall of Windwir in his dreams, blade and blood were the Marshers’ first and best means of compulsion. And taking what they needed was easily justified-their very lands had been taken from them by the gray robes and their guard.

  But then King Mardic had seen Windwir fall and watched darkness swallow the sun. Then, he’d seen the light suddenly appearing in the sky as it moved from the Androfrancine city east and north to settle upon the Gypsy Forests, and he’d known in that moment that the Gypsy King’s blade would guard their way Home. The next morning, he had personally led a band of skirmishers against Lord Jakob’s woods.

  Of course, Winters had not even been born at the time. And her father was all but a stranger to her, dead for most of her fifteen years. But she’d read his words added to the Book of Dreaming Kings, and she’d added her own words to his and those of their forefathers.

  Winters looked to the old men now, pushing her memory aside. There were troubling matters to attend to. “Discord has visited the House of Shadrus,” she said. She could hear the sorrow in her voice as she said it, could feel the lump in her throat. She gestured to the mouth of the cave. “Beyond lay six of our own, dead now by magicks their bodies could not sustain. And the body of our Hanric lies resting in the Gypsy King’s ground as his soul wanders the Beneath Places, dead at the hand of his own tribe.” She hesitated as the sorrow washed her again-a grief that went deeper, beyond Hanric. She’d received the bird just yesterday, while still making her way home slowly, and had wept at the news. More unexplained and unprovoked attacks, similar to the one that took her shadow and the Crown Prince of Turam, and one of the slain had been a child sleeping in
his bed. It broke her heart. She swallowed and felt the water in her eyes. “Beyond our own loss,” she said, “others have been slain, and though the Androfrancine logics are not our way, it is reasonable to believe that these assassinations were also carried out by the Children of Shadrus.”

  The oldest and wisest of the Twelve locked eyes with hers, and she saw they were red and watery. “These are dark tidings,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I’ve looked to the bodies, and my grandson is among them.”

  Her breath went out of her, and she hoped that the sound wasn’t as audible as it had sounded in her own ears. But the worry was irrelevant as others responded in similar manner.

  She’d ordered the bodies displayed discreetly in a tent that they might be identified. It was a gross violation of custom, not burying them where they’d fallen to keep body and soul near the place they’d parted company. But extreme circumstances called for extreme measures, and she could not let custom, no matter how sacred, interfere with finding the truth at the center of this Whymer Maze. Still it grieved her that their souls would wander the Above now, never finding their path through the Beneath Places to the home beyond.

  She looked around the circle now. “Were they familiar to anyone else?”

  Slow nods with downcast eyes. One cleared his voice. “My youngest sister’s son lay among them,” he said.

  Others joined in now. One was familiar but not a kinsman. Another was bound-husband to a friend’s granddaughter. Of the half dozen, only two were unknown. But eventually, Winters knew, they would be found out. She turned them now to other matters.

  “Had this been simply the attack in the Ninefold Forest Houses it could readily have been the isolated act of a handful,” she said. “But at least a dozen have fallen in nearly as many Houses.” She looked around as the old men nodded. “These were well planned, timed to the moment and careful as a Firstfall Dance on the night of the greenest moon.”